UCLSchool of Management

Verena Krause

Biography

Verena Krause is an Assistant Professor (Lecturer) at the UCL School of Management, in the Organizations and Innovation group. She earned her B.A. in Psychology from Boston University and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University.

Prior to earning her doctorate, Verena was a researcher at the Psychology Research
Laboratory at McLean
Hospital, Belmont, MA. Verena studied the cognitive and physiological
traits that may identify carriers for schizophrenia genes.

At UCL, Verena researches the conditions necessary for employees to be
creative, as well as the expected and unexpected consequences of
engaging in creative work. Her research has been published in the
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Verena is a member of the Academy of Management and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.

Research

Verena Krause researches the antecedents and consequences of creativity. Creativity involves the generation of new and
appropriate problem solutions—an effort that is becoming increasingly important
as the business environment continues to change rapidly and become more
competitive. Accordingly, in Verena’s first stream of research, she investigates antecedents
to creative performance. In her dissertation research, she found that
creative solutions are most likely to emerge when individuals retain their own,
unique point of view, rather than attempt to adopt the perspective of another
individual. She shows that people come up with less original solutions when they
attempt to take the perspective of another person because doing so triggers a cooperative
mindset.

In a second stream of research, Verena turns the tables to think
about creativity not only as a dependent variable, but also as an independent
variable that might have sweeping consequences for a wide range of
psychological, interpersonal, and behavioral outcomes at work. For example, she
shows that the opportunity to do creative work might actually feel liberating
and serve as an important outlet that mitigates psychological burdens.